Free Write Friday: Word Bank

I look for her bright red hair bobbing in the sea of people. I had warned her that I might lose her if she did not stay close by. But she had laughed gaily and called me a stuffed shirt. I want to be more carefree and easy-going, I really do. I want to worry less, and to take each moment as it comes. I find it difficult though – and stressful. Now, instead of enjoying the show and listening to the groups sing, I am shoving my way in between the press of people while looking for her pixie face. I could feel the worry constricting my chest. I had been wrong to come here; I had been wrong to try suppress my innate feelings of repulsion for large crowds; I had been wrong to allow her to convince me to attend.

I could not bear it any longer! I push my way through to the edge of the human mass. I need to get out, to feel the constrictions on my chest lessen. Finally! I take a deep breath and walk slowly on the gravel. Here the crowds are thinner. This is where I would wait. I am still worried about where my red-headed love is; but I know she will find me afterwards. She has survived many years without my care and anxiety, and I convince myself that she would survive this evening. I find a space to sit down and sink to the ground. Closing my eyes, I listen to the melodies and the haunting quality of the singer’s voice.

Little did I know that I had reason for concern. Tonight was unlucky for my love and I would not see her smile for a long time. Someone within the crowd had targeted her beauty and zest for life, craving to take it for himself. While I was calming down and listening to the open air concert, she was struggling to gain her breath and was screaming out my name in her head.

I think she is strong, partly because she has a love. People will hear her cries, understand that in calling a name, she is calling in fear of her life. They surround her and the assailant, holding him down, consoling her until the police arrive.
He is ashamed of not being there for her. Letting his angst about the crowd force him to leave her some where in the sea of people. So, he doesn’t visit her in the hospital, until she sends him an email, asking if he no longer loved her because she had be assaulted, violated by someone else.
He realizes that she doesn’t blame him, and needs him to help in the recovery process. He walks into her hospital room with a bouquet of sunflowers, her favorite. She bursts into tears of happiness.
Oh dear, I have written an ending to your wonderful story. Sorry. I was so taken by it, I wanted an outcome that was good for both.

Budding writer? As I was reading your entry, I was just thinking that a group write would be fun and interesting. It would be sort of like when we sat in circles as children and then carried a story forward with each child’s addition. Remember that party game? It was interesting to see where the story would go and each addition was a reflection of that person’s ideas and imagination.

We used to fold paper and write a sentence based on the one world from the previous sentence you could see. I used this when I was teaching with a specific historical event as the topic. The students thought it was lame, until I (or several of them) would read back the story we had created.
I like the idea of doing the same with a story — I don’t know if should be set it up so the next person had a cue, clue or prompt or how we would do the logistics (and who would co-ordinate, host, etc.) but I think’s it’s a great idea.